


But You're The Only One Who Thinks I'm Funny

by PresquePommes



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Writing & Publishing, Based on a Tumblr Post, Comedy, M/M, terrible porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 13:58:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1552922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PresquePommes/pseuds/PresquePommes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally inspired by this <a href="http://imperialharem.com/post/80413109637/perfectlyfake-can-you-guys-imagine-levi-writing">tumblr post</a>.</p><p>In which Levi is a popular novelist whose ridiculous thug vocabulary has to undergo severe editing before it can hit the presses, and in which Eren might just be the only person who genuinely likes the originals better.</p><p>Levi doesn't know how to react.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But You're The Only One Who Thinks I'm Funny

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cheese_kun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheese_kun/gifts).



> Who am I. What am I doing here. Why did I just write this thing I just wrote. 
> 
> I'm so sorry.
> 
> Edit: To everybody wetting themselves over Levi's badfic porn, all credit goes to Cheese_kun! Their hilarious contribution to the original post was copied word-for-word into this fic to preserve the integrity of the prompt fill.
> 
> Also because I don't think I could write such a glorious badfic even if I did my damnedest.

He recognized not only the title, but which printing of the book it was just by taking a single glance at the lettering on its spine.

 It was the second print run of his favourite author’s sixth book- paperback.

He had it in hardcover, first printing. He still had the dust sleeve.

“How would you describe your feelings about the works of this particular author, Eren? I’m given to understand-”

“ _Intense,_ ” Eren interrupted excitedly, slamming his hands down on the desk between them so hard that his interviewer’s coffee cup bounced, splashing tepid-looking brown onto the corner of Eren’s résumé. He was about to continue when he remembered what Armin had told him.

_‘If they ask you about a specific author, don’t come on too strong. You want them to think you’re interested, not obsessed.’_

He tucked his hands back into his lap hurriedly, tacking on a,

“Uh, I mean, I’m a fan. They’re good books. He’s a good write- uh, author.”

The interviewer eyed him with open amusement.

“Please, don’t restrain yourself,” he smiled. There was a beat of silence in which his eyes flickered over Eren’s face appraisingly. “Do you know why you’re here instead of downstairs fetching coffee and doing minor administrative work for the editorial team, Eren?”

Eren thought long and hard. “No,” he said honestly, “they said that out of all the new hires, I make the best coffee.”

His interviewer laughed, tapping a pen against his coffee cup demonstratively. “So I’ve heard,” he agreed, still chuckling. “Your credentials are… adequate without being exceptional, and you have very little previous experience working in an office environment. With that in mind, it’s strange that I would call you for an interview, isn’t it?”

Eren stared at him. _‘I’m pretty sure this wasn’t in the list of questions Armin ran through with me,’_ he thought nervously. “Uh. I work really hard?”

The man across the desk smiled mysteriously. He had a dimple. “So I’ve heard,” he repeated. “Eren, how would you feel if I told you that your favourite author has a history of trouble meeting deadlines?”

He cocked his head inquisitively. “Well, he does, doesn’t he?” he asked frankly, furrowing eyebrows. “I know he was sick for a while, and then there was-”

“He wasn’t sick.”

Eren just looked at him.

The man looked back. “If I told you that the man who wrote this book-” he tapped the cover with a well-manicured fingernail “-was infamous for turning in wholly unedited manuscripts just hours before his deadlines, how would you feel?”

He stared vacantly at the novel’s slightly creased spine. “Well, unedited or not, he gets them done, right? So that’s not actually missing a deadline.”

Something clicked in his mind as he stared down the battle-worn creases of weariness and frustration between his interviewer’s heavy eyebrows. “Wait, are you his editor?”

The man who most certainly _was_ the editor in question smiled wanly. “Erwin Smith,” he greeted without reaching for a handshake. “Eren, you’re familiar with these books?”

It didn’t really sound like a question, but he answered anyway. “I’ve read them all.” _Multiple times_ , he almost added zealously, but Armin’s voice was a warning hum in the back of his mind.

“So you’re familiar with the character of Cordon James as he was introduced in the third novel, am I correct?”

He nodded eagerly.

Erwin opened a drawer and drew a thin sheaf of paper out. “Ordinarily, I would warn you or give you some sort of explanation in advance, but given your familiarity with the series, I think you’ll understand what I’m getting at.”

Eren took the papers from him almost reverently, staring at the neat lines of print in awe. “It’s handwritten,” he breathed.

Erwin just inclined his head meaningfully. “Read it.”

Once his eyes focused on the letters enough to read them, he only made it three paragraphs in before he had to stop to bark with laughter and sputter out a slightly hysterical,

“What am I _reading?”_

Erwin leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “The first chapter of his latest book. That is what his manuscripts look like when he gives them to me, Eren.”

“ _‘When he’d stuffed that piece of shit lawyer in a big-ass emptied-out oil drum with a couple of rocks and kicked it over the edge of the dock, he’d never thought he’d see the fucking thing again’_ ,” he read aloud, voice cracking with the effort of reigning in his incredulous laughter. “ _‘But life in the lower side of the city had a way of taking a steaming dump into the waiting mouths of everybody around. Just like the rest of them, he was living under the pimpled ass of the rich, and- of the rich, and-’_ Jesus _Christ_ ,” he wheezed, clutching the manuscript so tightly that the edges were wrinkling. “You’re fucking with me, you’ve gotta be fucking with me,” he protested.

Erwin pulled the papers from his hands with a surprising amount of grace. “I’m not,” he murmured. “He writes the same way he talks.”

His eyes were sincere. Eren stared into them. “That’s why he’s never done an interview.” The realization was out of his mouth before it had finished percolating in his brain.

“That’s why he’s never done an interview,” Erwin confirmed, nodding. “Levi has an extraordinary amount of raw talent and a great deal of ability. He is _capable_ of writing any way he chooses and has proven that in the past- but he chooses to write with the bare minimum of effort because he considers it _my_ job to make him palatable to the general public.”

Eren blinked slowly. He opened his mouth.

“And what does that have to do with you?” Erwin intercepted neatly, glancing over the manuscript smiling again. “As it is, I find myself scrambling to… _translate_ his works in time for publication without losing any of their essential character. Are you familiar with the concept of the unstoppable force versus the immovable object, Eren?”

Eren wasn’t, but the question seemed to have been rhetorical.

“Despite being incredibly hardworking and surprisingly receptive to criticism, Levi is also something of an immovable object- he will do what I want him to without question, but he will do it _how_ he wants to, and at exactly the pace he personally considers reasonable.” He inhaled deeply, sinking back in his chair. “Eren, I am given to understand that you are something of an unstoppable force.”

He wasn’t sure what to say. There was a long moment of silence before Erwin continued.

“This is not the first time I’ve considered assigning Levi a… an _Annie Wilkes_ of sorts,” he said drily, and Eren got the impression that he was making a joke, so he laughed politely. “What would you do for the opportunity to not only be the first to read your favourite author’s books, but partially responsible for their making it to publication?”

“Anything,” he breathed excitedly.

“Wonderful.” Erwin smiled. “Now, then, can I get that in writing?”

***

“Wha- the fuck are _you_?”

He felt a hand twist in his hair and a thick arm loop around his throat from behind and considered for the first time that letting himself into a stranger’s apartment without their knowledge or consent was probably a bad idea.

Wandering around curiously without bothering to check if they were home and just hadn’t responded to his knocking was probably a worse idea.

“You have five seconds to convince me not to beat your ass into a soft enough pulp to feed down the garbage disposal.”

The voice growling in his ear was husky and dry. He smelled something musky and lightly floral. The arm under his grasping fingers was tightly corded with muscle. It began to tighten around his neck ominously.

“Mister Smith sent me I’m sorry I came in without asking please don’t kill me,” he gasped and felt the bicep pressing against the side of his throat flex for a moment before slipping away.

He turned around slowly, hands raised, and blinked away spots of light from the edges of his vision before shifting his gaze down.

 _‘Short,’_ he thought immediately and with a weird sense of profound delight.

A part of his mind had expected someone taller, someone unshaven and unwashed with the burgeoning potbelly of poor diet, the gaunt cheeks of forgetting to eat, and the glassy-eyed look of sleepless artistic mania.

Levi was none of these things.

He was as immaculately clean as the rest of his apartment- something Eren had absentmindedly attributed to a maid up until that very moment- combed and shaven and dressed neatly in clean and well-cared for clothes with a lithe, hard-muscled body that spoke of a certain dedication to not just fitness, but strength, heavy-lidded eyelids, dark circles that were more like bruises left by chronic exhaustion, and a sharp-eyed stare that made him wonder if Levi was considering putting _him_ in an empty oil drum and kicking him off the edge of the pier.

He was also short.

Eren was thankful. If he’d been taller, he would’ve been terrifying.

As it was, there was something oddly endearing about the combination of his deadly glare and unimpressive stature.

“You going to tell me why you’re here, or were you planning on standing around until one of the neighbour’s dogs comes over and takes a piss on your leg like it’s a fucking fire hydrant?” Levi snapped.

He was about to say something, but as soon as he opened his mouth, Levi’s manuscript resurfaced with a vengeance in his mind.

He could _hear_ Levi’s voice reading it.

He snapped his teeth together with a strangled wheeze. “Gimme a second,” he choked out, ducking his head into his elbow.

“I’ve already given you more than a minute,” Levi groused. “What do you think there is to laugh at here, you little shit?”

Eren waved disarmingly and took deep breaths to calm himself. “Mister Smith hired me to make sure you either get your books in earlier or- what did he say?- oh, _‘make the effort to write them like a civilized adult’_ ,” he explained.

Levi eyed him like he was something he’d found clogging the drain of his shower. “I’ve told that shithead a thousand times that I don’t need a fucking babysitter,” he snapped. “Shit, how old are you? You can’t be older than twenty-five. Why did he send you?”

“I’m twenty-one,” Eren supplied helpfully, grinning. “And I guess it was because I’m a fan of your books. He said something about an unstoppable object and an immovable force? I don’t know, I didn’t really understand that part.”

Levi’s eyes had widened incrementally. “He really fucking did it.” He suddenly looked guarded. “If you try to make me drink rinse water or eat a rat, kid, I fucking swear-”

“I feel like there’s a joke here I keep missing,” Eren admitted, and Levi stopped, blinking incredulously at him.

Levi started saying something and then sighed, running a hand under the thin fall of hair above his ears. The skin underneath was shaven, but slightly overgrown. “I need to cut this,” he muttered, seemingly to no one, and then jerked his chin up at Eren roughly. “Oi, brat, did you read my draft?”

Eren had to bite the side of his tongue to keep from laughing. “Yeah.”

“And?”

“I thought it was hilarious,” he confessed.

“You think I’m funny, brat?” Levi asked him, a strange look in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Eren admitted quietly, closing his eyes and hoping his favourite author wasn’t about to punch him.

He cracked one open when nothing happened. Levi was shuffling his feet against the carpet and frowning at something on the floor.

“Good,” He said after a beat of silence, and both of Eren’s eyes popped open in surprise. “They were supposed to be comedies,” he mumbled almost inaudibly.

For a second, he didn’t understand. “What?”

“My books,” Levi repeated grumpily, scowling, “they were supposed to be funny. Fuck, _I_ thought they were funny when I was writing them, but Erwin told me nobody was going to understand my sense of humour and turned them into some sort of bullshit _Sin City_ -style film noir crime syndicate Hollywood diarrhea and now everybody thinks I’m some anal retentive- Christ, what the fuck are you laughing at now?”

“ _You,_ ” he wheezed, “you’re fucking hilarious, oh my _god-_ ”

Levi just sort of stared at him uncomprehendingly, and somehow, that made it even funnier.

Eren laughed so hard he had to be sick in Levi’s garbage can.

Levi made him take out the trash, but he didn’t say he couldn’t come back.

***

“So tell me, Eren- was he what you’d expected?”

Memory hit him like a wave. Eren struggled to maintain his composure. “No,” he choked.

Erwin looked disappointed. “That’s to be expected,” he sighed. His look of resignation faded into something stern. “Eren, while I do understand your reservations, you are under contract, and choosing to break our agreement will incur serious repercussions-”

Eren stared at him. “What?” he asked, baffled. “No, no- I want to keep doing this, are you kidding me?”

Erwin lapsed into silence.

“Mister Smith, when you were briefing me, you made him sound like one of the thugs from his books,” he complained. “I mean, I guess he was kinda scary at first, but that was my fault, since I sort of snuck up on him- but anyway, once he stopped threatening to beat me up, we were pretty cool. He’s just kind of awkward,” Eren commented, smiling privately at the memory of Levi seesawing between stretches of silent fidgeting interspersed with terse questions that sounded like statements and bursts of inspired invective whenever Eren hit on something he cared about. “Why didn’t you tell me he was so fucking funny?”

He was about to backtrack and apologize for his language when he saw Erwin’s face.

“You-” He looked utterly mystified. “You think Levi’s funny?”

“Yeah,” Eren answered without hesitation, a little confused.

“You think _Levi_ is funny.”

“Yeah. Yes,” he insisted, furrowing his eyebrows. “Y’know, I went home and tried to read his books again and- okay, I can’t fucking hear anything but his voice when I read Cordon’s lines anymore, it’s ridiculous- and, um,” he took a deep breath, “they actually seem kind of wrong? It’s- I think I actually like the way he writes them better,” he admitted. “Now they kind of feel like they’re missing something without his weird shit jokes and I just sort of sat there looking at the words like _‘I wonder what he originally put there?’_ Because it sure as hell wasn’t anything as sophisticated as _‘the woman who lingered on the corner in ripped stockings and a wrinkled satin nightdress,’_ I mean, come on.”

Erwin was staring at him with an unreadable expression. “ _‘There was a hooker standing on the corner of Bethesda and Main in dollar store fishnets and a-’_ ” His brow wrinkled. “Something about the sweat stains on her back and under her arms. It was an entire paragraph, and there was a sentence in there about it being a hot night and her dress having dark lines where the sweat had rolled down the creases in the satin because it was so cheap it was almost waterproof. I remember because I stared at it for so long trying to figure out how to fix it that it stopped looking like words. Eventually I just took it out and rewrote it myself.”

Eren made a noise of protest. “Why?” he demanded. “That’s- that’s like- grungy poetry, and he rambled for an entire paragraph about her _pit stains_ , how is that not funny to you?”

Erwin just tilted his face away, looking for all the world like he’d just realized Eren could be an undiscovered species of toxic slug. He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. “I’m willing to accept that you’ve somehow become damaged in a way that allows you to consider his current writing style appealing. That leaves us, of course, with our other option: do you think you can get him to turn in his manuscripts earlier?”

Eren fidgeted restlessly. “Maybe? I don’t know, it’s-”

“The sooner he writes them, the sooner you’ll be able to read them,” Erwin told him.

Eren face felt like it was going to split with the force of his grin.

***

“What do you think you’re doing, brat?”

Eren froze and shoved his hands in his pockets guiltily. “Nothing.”

Levi hummed warningly as he reached around Eren to straighten the pile of papers on his desk before it fell. “Fucking around with my work isn’t nothing, you little shit. I’m going to ask you again: what do you think you’re doing in my office?”

His eyes were sharp, searching. Eren grinned sheepishly. “Shit, I didn’t even hear you come in. Uh. Checking your progress?”

He grunted, visibly unimpressed. “Don’t read my chapters before they’re done.”

“So can I-”

“No. Wait for the fucking book to come out like every other shithead fanboy.” It was an almost unconscious impulse. He didn’t even realize he was doing it until Levi recoiled, lips curling back from his teeth and shoulders hunching around his ears defensively. “Oi, don’t look at me like I just took a dump on your dead grandmother’s face before her internment, the books I write are a hell of a lot different than the books Erwin prints,” he snapped, grabbing his growing manuscript and stalking into the hallway.

“I _know_ ,” Eren agreed, trotting after him. “I like your books.”

Levi sent him a troubled look over his shoulder. “Don’t try to get on my good side by sucking up, kid. Nobody likes my books. That’s why we don’t print them.”

“ _I_ like your books,” Eren insisted quietly, backtracking and scrambling after him when he turned suddenly into the kitchen. “I asked Mister Smith to let me read the original manuscripts for the rest of your books, but he said you have them.”

Levi stopped so suddenly that Eren tripped over his own feet trying not to run into him and fell down. He winced as his hip hit the linoleum.

The eyes staring down at him were hostile, suspicious, but mostly just bewildered. “You asked Erwin for my books?”

“Yeah. He let me read the two he has. Can I read the other ones?”

 Levi squatted down beside him, papers clenched in one hand, the bridge of his nose pinched between the thumb and forefinger of the other.

“Nobody likes a book better before it’s edited than after, kid,” he enunciated carefully, like he was talking to a child.

“I like your books better before they’re edited,” Eren parroted back mockingly, “than after, _sir_.”

Levi’s nose wrinkled as he pulled up his lip in an incredulous sneer. “Don’t you ever get tired of repeating yourself?”

Eren smiled at him. “Don’t you?”

Levi just blinked.

***

“He watched me the entire time I was reading them, like he thought I was going to explode if I stopped laughing or something,” Eren told him seriously.

Erwin had developed the uncomfortable habit of staring at him with undisguised fascination. “I don’t find that surprising. Did you convince him that you found them enjoyable?”

Eren smiled widely. “What do you mean, _‘convince him’_? They’re great. He’s _great._ ”

If Erwin’s look of scrutiny turned thoughtful, Eren didn’t notice.

***

The third time he managed to sneak a peek at Levi’s newest manuscript, a rude shock awaited him.

The first two pages were brilliant, compelling, just as great as he’d expected-

The third was something else entirely.

 _"‘Waiting cave of wonders’_ ,” he mouthed, horrified but unable to stop. “ _Levi screamed wa-_ wantonly?” He stared at the words with a mounting sense of almost sublime unreality. “What the fuck is an _uke?_ What am I _reading_?”

Levi’s laugh was such a quiet huff of breath that it took him a moment to recognize it. When he did, he whirled around, trying to communicate the depth of his horror and confusion through expression alone. “What _is_ this?” he croaked, thrusting the papers towards him.

Levi smirked at him from the doorway, arms crossed across his chest.

“Fuck if I know. I can’t tell you unless you read it to me, I write a lot of shit,” he taunted, interrupting Eren’s wheeze with, “no, really, read it to me, I want to hear more about how you think I’m such a great writer.”

Eren stared down at the page, mystified.

“ _‘And then Eren rammed his hardcore schlong into Levi’s waiting cave of wonders’,_ ” he read woodenly, and Levi made a strangled sound of amusement.“‘ _They didn’t use lube but Levi was so wet they didn’t_ \- I don’t think that’s how that works,” Eren protested. “Dudes don’t, uh- you know what, never mind.”

Levi’s eyebrows shot up. “No, please, tell me more about your extensive experience fucking dudes up the ass, I need to know this for future reference.” When Eren started to raise his head slowly and warily, he snorted. “ _Writing_ reference, you flaming sack of dog shit, so I can make sure nothing detracts from how much you _genuinely enjoy_ what I write.” There were a beat of silence. “Writing reference,” he repeated again, somewhat awkwardly.

Eren just looked at him for a second and then looked back down at the page. “‘ _but_ _they didn’t need any’,_ ” he continued, and Levi guffawed.“ _‘Aaah Eren-san! Give me more!' Levi screamed wantonly. ‘You like that, huh?' Eren's large hands wrapped around my-_ ” He had to stop for a moment. “Why would you _write_ this? _‘my- I mean Levi's dripping sausage. The uke's eyes glistened_ \- no seriously, what the fuck is an _uke?_ Why would you write this?”

 Levi shrugged. “I thought you liked my writing. You said it was funny.”

Eren stared at him. “It think I’d find this a lot funnier if it wasn’t about me,” he admitted. “I mean, it- it’s funny, it’s just- why would you write about _me_ fucking _you_ up the ass, I just don’t-”

Levi shrugged again, looking bored. “Why not?”

***

“And _this_ is what he wrote,” Erwin asked him again, tapping his pointer finger against the offending piece of paper.

Eren nodded heavily, beyond finding the energy to vocalize confirmation after nearly fifteen minutes of clarifying that _yes_ , that was, in fact, what Levi had written.

Erwin gazed blankly down at the page again before running a hand over his face.

“Let me guess, you think this a masterpiece, too?”

He made a face. “No, I don’t think he was really trying.”

Erwin just stared at him.


End file.
